EVIL EMPHASIZED BY CHIEF JUSTICE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 257, 29 July 1942, Page 8

EVIL EMPHASIZED BY CHIEF JUSTICE

Offences Against Boys MAN SENT TO JAIL FOR TEN YEARS Comment on the seriousness of sexual offences involving boys, was made by the CJiief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday, when sentencing Olaf Mordey Henrici, aged 34, radio recording engineer, to a total of 10 years’ imprisonment on nine counts of indecent assault on a male. Henrici had been committed for .sentence from the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, where he had pleaded guilty to the charges. “This can only be described as a dreadful and shocking case, as painful as it is shocking,” said his Honour. “The circumstances of the case as they appear in evidence are simply unprintable. The trouble is that in every case of this kind upon a boy the offender sows seeds of contamination, of which the potential evil harvest is incalculable.” His Honour then related a case which he had bad to deal with of a young man in his early twenties who pleaded guilty to 17 or 19 offences against a number of boys. On inquiry it was discovered that this young man’s crimes could be traced back to when he was nine, when he had an offence- committed against him by a drunken sailor.“That’s what 1 mean when I refer to the wrecking of young lives,” his Houcur continued. “The case I refer to was a case in which one boy was interfered with. You have interfered with no fewer than four. What to do with cases ike yours is an exceedingly difficult problem, but the State has a more difficult problem with this evil, and two others which have been the subject of comment recently. I do not suppose much, if anything, cam be dune to check these evils when the country is in a state of war. One cannot dogmatize on how the evils can be checked, but certain it is that the matter calls for serious consideration and wise statesmanship. The' evils, unless decked, are calculated to sap the very vitality of the nation. The Court has at present to protect boys from these dangerous, evil, contaminating influences.” Saying that he did not think that he would be doing his duty to the State if he did not sentence Henrici to incarceration for a long period, his Honour imposed a sentence of five years’ imprisonment with hard labour to be followed by five years’ reformative detention. Counsel for Henrici was Mr. H. Mitchell, who said before sentence was passed that the prisoner was a British subiect of Danish parentage, who up to the present bad led a happy, normal life. He was an old boy of a Public School in England, and had been a good husband aid father. He enlisted in the Territorial!. before the war and served from the outbreak till lie resigned his commission in June, 1941. But running through his life was this ghistly degeneration. Mr. Mitchell said he had been at some painsto find a reasonable, or even an unreasonable, explanation for it, but it was quite inexplicable. It seemed to be the culmination of a degeneration that had been going on for some time, and could only be explained by some mental or physical defect. Henrici felt the shame keenly; Mr. Mitchell concluded. He had wrecked a hitherto happy marriage and probably wrecked his own future. “And probably wrecked the future of four young lives, ’ lis Honour interposed. For one offence of a similar nature Duncan Edward Chasland, aged 43, labourer, was sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour tor four years. Remarking that Chasland had previous convictions for like offences, his Honour warned him that if he came before the Court again for such an offence the probability was that he would be declared a habitual criminal. .